FPSF: Summing it all up

Festivals are sweaty. Festivals are loud. Festivals are smelly and crowded and, as Sunday proved, potentially muddy. But ultimately, the fifth annual Free Press Summer Festival was a celebration: of Houston, of music, of Houston music and the people who love it.

Saturday’s solid lineup gave us icons (Iggy Pop, most of the Geto Boyz) and upstarts (Alabama Shakes, the Niceguys), oddities (Jandek, the Quad City DJs) and bonafide headliners (Calvin Harris, Postal Service). A few acts also paid tribute to the Houston firefighters who were killed in Friday’s blaze.

Sunday, then, was a full-on party after a (slightly) rainy start. Early sets from the Suffers, Emily Bell and the Kashmere Stage Band were dazzlers. Los Amigos Invisibles had conga lines snaking through the crowd. Huge crowds chanted and cheerd for Matt & Kim and Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Former Houston Texan Connor Barwin partied all over the place. Bun B popped up, of course. Even Mayor Annise Parker grooved in the crowd to Mavis Staples.

And Gogol Bordello, according to Andrew Dansby, summed up the FPSF spirit with a single line: “There were never any good old days, they are today, they are tomorrow.”

And tomorrow, we’ll all probably be making guesses for FPSF 2014. Who’s on your wishlist?